Continuing our series of old and interesting blogs discovered during my clean-up, today I’d like to re-introduce you to my contention that had Gustave Caillebotte had a more easily pronounceable name, he would have been much better known. How easy it was to remember the names of the other Impressionists like Monet, Dégas and Renoir.
I believe it is the same for another of my heroes, Filippo Brunelleschi, to my mind the towering genius of the early Renaissance.
As well as designing and supervising the construction of the incomparable dome of Florence cathedral, Filippo invented linear perspective, designed the first new-classical building since Roman times, the Ospedale degli Innocenti and created the sublime space of the Pazzi chapel in the cloisters of Santa Croce. With his one-time apprentice Donatello (who re-created classical sculpture) and his patron Cosimo (Medici) the Elder (who led the re-discovery of Greek and Roman texts and promoted Humanism), Brunelleschi can truly be regarded as the father of the Renaissance.
Yet because his name is not straightforward to pronounce (Brew-nel-esk -i) you hear it mentioned far less often than, say, Fra Angelico or Botticelli.
Be that as it may, we have named one of the Watermill bedrooms after this wonderful Renaissance man. Not only does it have French windows opening on to the Watermill courtyard, there is also a large roof terrace outside its front door, from which you can see the magnificent Appennine mountains in the distance.